Two years ago I decided that I needed to switch out my archaic “category” system on this site for a more dynamic “tag” system. Adding categories is a pain, meaning I never have an appropriate one for anything I post. Tags make all sorts of amazing stuff possible. In short, it was a “no brainer,” really.

The only problem was that I had a wealth of posts back then, and I didn’t look forward to having to go through and tag them all. So I didn’t switch over. Because it would be too much work.

It’s now been two years and like 600+ posts later, and I actually got around to doing the bulk of the work today. I got it to automatically populate my existing categories into tags, so every post has at least one tag it belongs to, but I’ve been going through and adding more appropriate tags as I find them. This is a real pain in the butt, but I feel it is well worth it.

The moral of this story? If you think it’s going to be too much work to do something now, just imagine how much more work it will be when you actually get around to it.

UPDATE: A lot (most) of my old posts are very poorly titled, so as I go through tagging them I’m trying to fix those as well. This will probably cause them to come through your feed reader again, so I apologize if you’ve seen them before. Many of you haven’t, though, so I don’t feel too badly about it.

Phil points out a problem with the plan to launch Star Trek star “Scotty’s” ashes into space — namely that he won’t get high enough to avoid earth’s gravity¹.

Cant get high enough, eh? I say let Keith Richards snort him with some blow. That ought to do it.

My post earlier today about new ketchup varieties reminded me of something:

A few months back D decided to make every possible effort to cut high-fructose corn syrup out of her diet (for a variety of reasons). One of the biggest problems she encountered was ketchup; it all seemed to contain copious amounts of that evil substance.

Then she found Heinz^™‘s “Low Carb” variety, which containd no high-fructose corn syrup. I haven’t tasted it, so I can’t vouch for whether it’s any good or not, I’m just throwin’ it out there in case you desire it and didn’t know it existed.

If your household is at all like ours, then you’re likely on a low-sodium diet, meaning you miss out on that dollop of ketchup you put on everything you eat.

Well fret no more: Heinz now makes a “No Sodium” variety! This great new variety will ensure that all your other low-sodium foods taste at least somewhat edible.

Because so many of the blogs I read have been “monetizing,” or raking in loads of essentially-free money, I’ve decided to take steps to do the same myself. People seem to enjoy reading about other peoples’ money-making ventures, so I figure this in and of itself will ensure that I attract new readers, which will then bring me more money, which I will write about, which will bring me more readers, which will…

Whoa. Stuck in a loop there…

Anyway, the problem I’m facing is that I think advertising is inherently evil. I use AdBlock in conjunction with a community-maintained list of blocking rules such that I never ever see any ads. To me, simply putting ads on my site would be evil; putting them there while I myself block them would be hypocritically evil. Or evilly hypocritical.

So, with that in mind, I did some emailing around and ended up hooking up with an underwriter that I’m pretty happy with. They provide me with money, I never talk about what they get in return. Talk about a perfect relationship…

Lest you worry that things will change as a result of this new financial focus, I’ll make this pledge to you right now: You the reader won’t notice any difference as a result of my newfound financial support; I’ll just be able to afford more Heinz^™ Yellow Mustard — which, if you ask me, is the finest yellow mustard money can buy. If your local grocer doesn’t carry Heinz^™ Yellow Mustard, then you owe it to yourself to ask them to stock it.